CONNEAUT —
An eight-day, 2,000-mile motoring event that will be streaming live on the Internet next month will feature a stop in Conneaut, officials said.
The 2012 Fireball Run Northern Exposure will feature 40 teams who will travel from Independence on Cleveland’s west side to Bangor, Maine, Sept. 21-29. It’s not a race — teams will travel at speeds that will be monitored by global-positioning satellites. Instead, at pre-determined locations the competitors must accomplish missions and solve clues to score and travel the course.
Teams driving a wide range of exotic vehicles will stop in Conneaut on Sept. 23 for a Lake Erie perch lunch at Township Park. They will complete two missions before moving on.
Fireball Run is designed to benefit and bring awareness to Race to Recover America’s Missing Children. Each vehicle will be affixed with a photo of a child from the team’s home region. Team members will also distribute fliers about missing kids.
David Hickman, Fireball Run spokesman, said Thursday that organizers learned about Conneaut while plotting this year’s route. On the prowl for interesting locations, planners learned the city hosts an annual D-Day re-enactment, he said. By coincidence, last year’s Fireball Run included a mission that ultimately ended with teams meeting the woman who typed the Normandy Invasion orders for Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The Conneaut mission could involve the D-Day re-enactment in some fashion, Hickman said.
“We’re working out the details now,” he said. “It’s a nice bookend to last year’s mission.”
It’s expected the teams will spend an hour or two in town before moving on, Hickman said. “It should be a lot of fun for both the participants and viewers,” he said.
This year’s event features celebrity participants culled from the ranks of female athletes, including professional drivers Tina Stull and Shea Holbrook, wakeboard champion Tarah Benzel and “Timber” Tina Scheer, a timber sports competitor who has appeared on “Survivor.”
Conneaut officials expect the event to provide plenty of free exposure for the city. It’s believed millions of people will follow the competition via live streaming and in webisodes on the Fireball Run’s website.The chamber, along with the Conneaut Board of Tourism and other individuals, is seeking sponsors for the city’s formal welcoming lunch. For more information, contact the chamber office (593-2402 or conneautchamber@suite224.net) before Sept. 1.
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